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US boxer Hector 'Macho' Camacho dies

November 24, 2012 21:06 IST

Former US boxing champ Hector 'Macho' Camacho, who was shot in the face this week, died on Saturday after being removed from life support, Rio Piedras Medical Director Ernesto Torres told reporters. He was 50.

Camacho had been declared brain dead on Thursday after being struck in the face in a drive-by shooting earlier in the week.

Hector CamachoTwo gunmen opened fire on Camacho and a friend, Adrian Mojica Moreno, 49, on Tuesday as they sat in a car outside a liquor store in the San Juan suburb of Bayamon, Camacho's irthplace.

Police are investigating the shooting and no arrests have been made.

Mojica Moreno, the driver of the car, was killed and Camacho was shot in the jaw. The bullet fractured two vertebrae and lodged in his shoulder, damaging the arteries that carried blood to the brain, doctors said.

Police found nine small bags of cocaine in the driver's pockets and one open in the car.

Camacho, a left-handed fighter who grew up in New York's Spanish Harlem neighborhood, had a record of 79-6-3 with 38 knockouts. His three-decade career featured fights with a "who's who" of boxing and a flamboyant style that included entering the ring in an outfit based on the Puerto Rican flag.

Camacho's body was taken to the hospital's pathology section and brought to the Institute of Forensic Sciences as required by law, Torres told reporters.

El Nuevo Dia newspaper reported the family was planning a funeral in New York, where Camacho grew up, and possibly a public wake in Puerto Rico.

Source: REUTERS
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